12th September

With no end in sight to the fine, warm conditions resulting from the prevailing easterlies today was another more of the same day. Although indications from the Obs mist-nets suggested that still fewer migrants were making landfall - the daily ringing totals there have declined steadily from 120 last Friday to just 10 today - there was evidence from the fieldworkers that across the island as a whole numbers may have crept up a little today. A pretty well full suite of mid-September migrants made the list but it was only really Blackcaps and Robins that featured in any quantity on the ground, with heading towards 100 of the former and 50 of the latter scattered about the centre and south of the island; overhead passage was steady rather than spectacular with the usual suspects - mainly Meadow Pipits and hirundines - dominating. Quality was hard to come by, with 11 White Wagtails, 2 Nightingales (both at the Obs Quarry) and singles of Hobby and Merlin providing the best value at the Bill, and a lone Little Stint again featuring at Ferrybridge. The seawatchers were left scratching their heads after dipping out on virtually all of a major movement of birds on the other side of Lyme Bay; their contribution to the day's proceedings amounted to no more than 13 Sandwich Terns, 8 Common Scoter and 3 Balearic Shearwaters.
Also some snippets of late news received this week: an Osprey over Top Fields on 5th September, an Ortolan Bunting at New Ground on 7th September and a Nightjar at Park Road, Easton, on 8th September.

A dispersing Horse Chestnut provided the night's only interest in the Obs garden moth-traps.